Digital marketing diaries:

A pattern I keep seeing in growth audits: brands still optimise for blue links while buyers get answers. The new job is being the brand AI recommends.

From today’s read on AEO tools, a few commercially useful takeaways:
– Track whether you are recommended, how you are described, where competitors beat you, and which prompts you should own. That is direct insight into demand capture at discovery and comparison.
– Structured, authoritative, answer-ready content wins. When AEO data flows into your CRM, you can link visibility lifts to leads, pipeline and retention, not vanity scores.
– Avoid tool sprawl. Start with a free baseline or features in your current suite, select one primary platform, and demand clear next actions, not just dashboards.
– Prioritise the 2 to 3 AI engines your buyers use, segment prompts by funnel stage, and first upgrade pages that already rank, convert or earn links. Most gains sit in assets you already have.

Operationally, this is about clarity and cadence: a lean prompt library, weekly tracking, monthly content improvements, quarterly reviews. Less guessing, less waste, better decisions.

If you’re exploring AEO, always happy to compare notes.